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Atomic Energy’s death spiral has spawned a run to green power.
But the toxic mineral lithium has become a critical pitfall…with clear ways around it that demand attention.
Humankind’s 400+ licensed large commercial reactors embody history’s most expensive technological failure.
Once hyped as “too cheap to meter,” just three “Peaceful Atom” plants have opened in the US since 1996, all of them very late and hugely over budget. Four at Japan’s Fukushima blew up in 2011, with ever-escalating economic, ecological and biological costs. Two in South Carolina are outright $9 billion failures. Projects in Georgia (US), Finland, France and the UK have come with catastrophic delays, overruns and cancellations. So have much-hyped Small Modular Reactors, and the taxpayer-funded idea of restarting nukes already dead.
And in the post DeepSeek era, gargantuan projected power demands for Artificial Intelligence and crypto are coming back to Earth.
Meanwhile the US now gets far more usable electricity from solar, wind and geothermal than from coal or nuclear. China’s wind/solar investments now dwarf its nukes, whose new construction plans are shrinking fast . Likewise those for the world as a whole (except among countries wanting to build nuclear weapons).
Despite nearly seven decades of operation, commercial atomic power still can’t get comprehensive private insurance against the next Fukushima. The recent (likely Russian) February 24, 2025 explosion at Chernobyl warned that a single drone or military mis-hap could ignite yet another mega-radiation release.
Amidst the resultant rush to renewables, the toxic, expensive mineral lithium is slated for millions of batteries worldwide.
Some will be at the heart of electric cars. Others will back up solar and wind turbines for “when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.”
Powerful, efficient, and relatively lightweight, lithium has been viewed as essential for use in electric vehicles and stationary storage. Billions of dollars have been invested in mining, milling and processing lithium, with far more to come. At its best, it has been envisioned at the core of any green-powered transition.
But lithium is volatile, flammable, toxic, challenging to mine, sustain and re-cycle, with ecological, labor and health issues that must be addressed.
On January 15 and February 18, 2025, fire devastated the 300mgw Moss Landing, California, battery storage facility, among the world’s largest. Faulty maintenance and major techno-failures set 80% of the plant ablaze, emitting massive toxic fallout. So have Tesla vehicles burned in accidents, wildfires and protests.
Health impacts already reported by lithium downwinders tragically recall symptoms from poisonous disasters like Bhopal (India), East Palestine (Ohio), Three Mile Island (PA) and elsewhere. Lithium mining can be ecologically destructive, with significant health and labor issues.
Thankfully, there are superior substitutes on the near horizon. Sodium Ion batteries are heavy, but can be far cheaper, cleaner to mine and easier to recycle than lithium. Chinese auto giant BYD now offers a sodium iron battery sedan cheaper than a lithium Tesla. Iron air, aqueous (water) metal ion, gallium nitride and other unexpected players are likely (sooner or later) to have their place.
When it comes to the millions of solar panels poised to bury nuke power worldwide, activists concerned with electric/magnetic radiation warn that DC/AC “dirty” current must also be carefully managed, requiring updated filters, inverters, micro-grids and more. There are also the on-going problems of eco-destructive bio-fuel production and persistent turbine bird kills.
Fossil/nuclear backers are forever happy to weaponize such techno-challenges. Solartopian advocates have no choice but to fully face them
Lithium may be a long way from plutonium, high level radioactive waste, or the airborne fallout that cursed Hiroshima andNagasaki, Fukushima and Chernobyl. There are known solar solutions to EMF/inverter challenges. The kwh/bird kill problem has been steadily improving.
While wind turbines don’t kill fish, fossil/nuke burners kill trillions. Agri-voltaics on solarized farmland can be hugely productive. Micro-grids are orders of magnitude safer, cleaner and more efficient than the utility power lines that ignite our forests and cities.
But on a planet we must preserve, in a volatile political and ecological climate, mere “trade-offs” may not be good enough.
With VERY significant economic realities on our side, green advocates can and must phase out not only King CONG (Coal, Oil, Nukes, Gas) but also lithium and other toxic elements, along with EMF emissions, poorly deployed inverters, bird kills, disrupted desert eco-systems, faulty grids, and more.
Perfection may not always be possible…but we need to rapidly evolve to pretty damn close.
Thankfully, unlike the forever escalating cost overruns, delays, techno-failures and eco-impacts of fossil/nuclear fuels, the barriers to overcome on the way to Solartopia seem largely curable, at prices that are sustainable and rewards that are essentially infinite.
© Counter Punch
